


suddenly, I'm overcome

by neyvenger (jjjat3am)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6824200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/neyvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dele's always been impulsive, but confessing his feelings for his best friend in a stupid SpursTV segment is taking it way over the line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	suddenly, I'm overcome

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote DeleDier and you know what, I'm not even sorry. I'm a little bit sorry that Spurs didn't win the league, but not as much as I'm sorry about Liverpool not winning it, which is where my true allegiance lies. But this ship defies all club loyalties.
> 
> The start of this fic is from [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgb7Eilgp0c) , which I hope you've seen and were as delighted as I am. 
> 
> The title to this fic is form Florence and the Machine's 'Queen of Peace', which I listened to while writing.

 

 

 

“What would you say was the highlight of your year?”

 

The words fly out of his mouth before he’s even aware of what he’s saying. Dele gets like that sometimes, impulsive, especially when he’s angry, enough to punch someone in the face, cuss them out, to drive his fists into the creaky wood of the locker after a bad loss.

 

He’s not angry right now, and yet.

 

“Highlight of my year? Meeting you.”

 

He wants to take the words back immediately after he says them. Not because they aren’t true, but because of the split-take Eric does, the way his cheeks tumble into dusty pink, the way his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.

 

“That’s emotional,” Eric says, and Dele’s not imagining the roughness in his voice.

 

The rest of the interview goes on okay, but there’s something that’s the slightest bit off between them. Nothing that the media guys will notice and nothing that’ll hopefully be transmitted to the viewers, but Eric’s blush doesn’t let up, and he keeps chewing on his lower lip, which is a disgusting habit, and doesn’t explain why Dele keeps watching it.

 

Things are still a little strange after, too. Dele catches a ride back home with Eric, as he usually does, but the car holds none of their usual banter. Instead, Eric turns the music up louder, and Dele can’t even complain, because it’s his favorite. He sings along, obnoxiously loud, but Eric doesn’t try to banter him about it, or even join in with his cat screech of a voice. He doesn’t smile; not even the small one, the one that softens the corner of his eyes and nowhere else.

 

They idle in front of Dele’s apartment building, and Dele opens his mouth to speak, to say something to break the weird tension between them, invite Eric up for some video games and food, but Eric cuts him off.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow at practice,” he says, “can you catch a ride with H? I have some errands to run.”

 

And that’s a clear dismissal if Dele’s ever heard one (and he’s heard a few of them in his lifetime), made especially clear by the way Dier’s eyes cut away from his, focused on the road, oil slick in the wake of another London rain shower.

 

“Yeah, okay,” Dele says and gets out. He doesn’t watch Eric drive away.

 

He puts off ordering takeout, until it’s too late and the shops are closed, and makes himself gluten-free pasta with some oil and grated garlic. He doesn’t imagine Dier across the couch from him, giving him shit about his garlic breath.

 

He imagines him in his kitchen though, just for a moment, among bubbling pots and pans, critiquing Dele’s onion chopping skills. It’s more like a memory. That was last night, before Dele opened his stupid fucking mouth and told his best friend how he felt about him on local television.

 

*

 

Dele gets a ride to practice with Harry the next morning in sullen silence, ignoring the concerned glances he keeps catching from the corner of his eye. He leans on the window instead, watching his breath fog up the glass. It’s rained again. It always rains, but he doesn’t remember it bothering as much as it does now.

 

“So, how come you aren’t riding in with Dier?” Harry asks him and Dele shrugs.

 

“He had other plans,” Dele says, blandly, and tries not to think too much about what they might be.

 

“Plans that don’t involve you? I find that hard to believe, you’ve been attached at the hip all season.”

 

Dele shrugs and they drive the rest of the way in silence.

 

Things are still off during training. Eric is late, and he doesn’t pair up with Dele for stretches. Their play is fine. Dele rationalizes the creeping cold in his limbs by the ever present rain, and not from the way Eric’s gaze skitters away every time their eyes meet.

 

He gives in and texts him in the afternoon, a simple _‘Come over? We can order in.’_

 

He doesn’t scramble for the phone when it buzzes, a queasy feeling in his stomach. He doesn’t.

 

_‘Can’t. Have plans. Sry.’_

 

The queasy feeling turns to bile.

 

*

 

It’s fine. It’s all fine. There’s a few games left to the end of the season, and they’re all busy, fighting for the title for the first time in years. And if the only contact he gets from Dier is a perfunctory pat after a goal, or a few pointed words about getting back and tracking a runner, then that’s fine too. Dele’s got better things to do.

 

*

 

The anger surges in him like a tidal wave, and his fist meets the tender flesh of Claudio Yacob’s stomach. And that’s the end of that.

 

*

 

He watches the game against Chelsea at home, curled up on his couch with a blanket. Frustration bubbles under his skin like champagne, like a living thing, and he punches the wall when the ref whistles the end. It only makes his hand hurt, the skin on his knuckles split open and tenderly pink.

 

He turns the TV off and putters in the apartment aimlessly for a while, before shrugging on a jacket and walking out.

 

Eric’s apartment is only ten minutes walking distance and it’s not raining. Dele sits on his doorstop and waits.

 

Anger curls into a cold hard ball inside his chest, gnawing on the smooth insides of his ribs.

 

It takes about an hour for Eric’s car to roll in, sliding to a stop in his parking spot. The engine is quiet, but the absence of noise is startling when it turns off. Dele gets up, swaying on his feet. His arse had grown numb for sitting on the stone for so long.

 

As soon as he catches sight of Eric, the angry ball in his chest unfolds, melts into something softer, something almost tender. Eric looks exhausted, the circles under his eyes almost bruises, his shoulders slumped.

 

He flinches away when he sees Dele walking towards him, but doesn’t resist when Dele takes the keys from his hand and guides him gently through the door with a hand on his lower back. It’s warm under his fingers.

 

Eric sits on the sofa in the living room, and Dele pulls off his jacket, opens the freezer to pull out one of the containers of Mrs. Dier’s soup to heat up. A few minutes later, he’s handing Eric a bowl and a spoon.

 

Eric eats mechanically, staring at the silent TV set, and Dele watches him, openly, taking in the exhaustion on his face, the utter devastation, and commits it to memory. It’s his to bear.

 

Eric finishes his soup, puts it neatly aside on the coffee table. They sit in silence, until Dele can’t stand it anymore.

 

“Eric,” he says, leans forward to put a hand on Eric’s knee, squeezing. He doesn’t know what his voice sounds like, but Eric shakes his head sharply.

 

“Don’t,” he says, “don’t, please.”

 

Dele falls silent, swallows the platitudes burning on his tongue. He doesn’t remove his hand.

 

He doesn’t know how long they sit there, but eventually Eric’s breath shudders into even, and he slumps against the couch. The tension in his shoulders doesn’t go away in sleep, and Dele winces at how painful it looks. He coaxes him sideways, onto a pillow, and covers him with the blanket laid over the back of the couch.

 

Then, he goes into Eric’s bedroom and lies on top of the covers, shivering in the cold, Eric’s tears drying on his sleeve.

 

*

 

Dele’s already up by the time Eric gets up off the couch the next morning. He freezes when he catches sight of Dele leaning against his kitchen counter.

 

Dele picks up the cup of tea he’s made, strong and with too-much sugar, exactly like Eric likes it, and hands it to him. Their fingers don’t brush on the porcelain.

 

The silence in the kitchen is almost a living thing. A car horn sounds from the road and Dele almost flinches, and a child starts crying in the adjacent apartment.

 

“Me too,” Eric says, and he must read some of Dele’s confusion on his face, because he adds, “The best part of this season was meeting you.”

 

Dele’s always been impulsive, but it’s not anger that drives him now, to cross the few steps to where Eric is standing, taking the cup from his unresisting fingers and putting it on the counter. It’s not anger that guides his hands to fist into the soft fabric of Eric’s shirt, his forehead coming to rest on Eric’s collarbone.

 

There’s a moment of stillness, of inactivity that makes disappointment fall to the bottom of his stomach like a stone. Then Eric’s hands come up around his shoulders, pulling him closer, just on the edge of too tight.

 

He can feel Eric’s heartbeat under his fingers, too fast.

 

Eric’s lips press against his hair, lingering before he pulls away. When Dele looks up, Eric is smiling, the one that softens the corners of his eyes and nowhere else.

 

So he kisses him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> \- the 2015/16 season is the closest Spurs came to winning a Premier League title in a while. The drew against Chelsea at the start of May, and lost it. Leichester City took the title instead.  
> \- Dele was suspended for that match for punching Claudio Yacob in a previous match  
> \- H and Harry is Harry Kane  
> \- thanks to jazzypom, for Spurs spotting  
> \- [my tumblr](http://neyvenger.tumblr.com/)


End file.
